Ecotone

Hi guys,

So after 3 month of work I think is time to show you a little more about the game I'm working on with somes friends. So I have translated for you the last post I have made on my french devblog, I hope you will find somes interesting stuff.



Ecotone is a single player platform with a strange character. Evolving in a weird world you must find where you are and why. After working on this game for three months, it’s about time to review the project development. So what we have for now :
- World 1 (3 world are scheduled) is almost finished : the bestiary and level’s graphics are almost done.
- 2 recorded musics. (One for World 1 that lasts 10 minutes to avoid repetition and one specially composed for the last level) and sound designs.
- World 1’level design is complete. All we need is to playtest.
Take a look :





Level Design et Gameplay

World 1 is designed in the following way:- Each level begins with a sentence. The sentence allows the player to understand the level or it’s only used to illustrate the level. Sometimes, the sentence is the key to finish the level (Notice that the player will manage to finish the level without take a look to the sentence, but it will be more difficult).
- We try to change a little the gameplay for each level. For examples: speed chase,  resolve a puzzled level based on the sentence, modification of gravity, take control of several characters etc. Each level has something more that make the player want to go further and discover the next level and its sentence.
 - We have made some playtest sessions:  To finish World 1, this takes an average of 1 hour. This raises hope that the game time will last for 2-3 hours about. Which it’s not so bad.

What about now ?

At the beginning of the development, this project should be a little game intended to finish on Kongregate.  However, the project has evolved into something more. We near of 50Mo ( the game weighs 12 Mo but exported with Adobe Air, it weighs 40Mo more). So, the project is more important but still manageable. Now World 1 is finished, the rest should go faster.So, a game too important to be on a Flash portal, we wonder if we should sell the game. Because, that might not seem like much, but this calls a great involvement for all of us, and it will be cool to have this satisfaction.
However, selling a project means to have a structure to retrieve funds, which also means significant costs  to do well (purchase of licenses, to pay insurance etc.); So we decided to do this and we’ll see what could happen. We think about crowfunding or pre-order. Maybe it’s a solution.And yes, we don’t want to tell you more about the story but the game has now a name: Ecotone.

Please, feel free to tell me what you think !

And, yes, the game director (wich is a very clever cat) had found a new member for the team:

Graphics look awesome! Can't wait to try it.

Nice graphics and name.

Perhaps you could release World 1 as a sponsored Flash game, then attempt to get the AIR .exe on a service like Steam to sell the remaining worlds (or each world individually?). Alternatively, with a talented coder, you could probably release it on Flash portals and use services like Kongregate's Kreds to purchase the remaining worlds.

We where thinking to something like that but 10mo isn't way too much for a portal game like kongregate ?

The Game's Art Is Incredible (I Wish I Could Draw Like That...) The Gameplay Looks Good Too, I Can't Wait To Try It!

Hi guys,

Wake me up before we (indie)gogo !


Trailer, awesome perks and stuff after this link :  http://igg.me/p/111357?a=317635

That's a good passion for game development, i love your sketches and little ecotone statue

BTW make it a series, each world being another game. This way you will not lose motivation. First game will gain some crowd and other 2 games will be easier to be announced. Also you may sell two other worlds, but only first world free to play.

Wish you success.

Please don't submit this into the Newgrounds game jam. Thanks

Please don't submit this into the Newgrounds game jam. Thanks

Yeah, Pls dont. 

Yeah, just don't sumbit it. Give us a chance!

I saw the indiegogo page for this earlier today

I love the style and I hope you reach your goal, but it bothers the hell outta me that those worm-looking tube things that are everywhere aren't animated. They're living things but they're completely motionless and it just wrecks immersion.

They wanna wriggle man, let em wriggle!

Thanks ! About the worms, they are in tilesets and there is a lot of worms... We already reached the Stencyl limits with thoses guys so it is a technical limit for us. Plus if we put animation on all this worms (there is more than 50 differents) our 2D artist will need 6 month working only on this (it is exagerated but you get my point.). And if worms are animated we think the player may lose the focus on what is the ennemies and what is only graphics decors. Because now only the "play layer" has animations so the player can focus on this.

Maybe they just move their eyes following the player? It would be nice. Or they just move their eyes a little occasionally. Not always.

Personally I'd just take the eyes out then. Having a living entity that looks like it should be extremely fluid in motion be entirely motionless looks off, even if it were blinking. Removing the eye makes it look less like a living thing, so it wouldn't set off that reaction. As it is now it's really jarring and like I said earlier, wrecks immersion. And it's too beautiful a game to not be immersed in.

However! Please note that I possibly have no idea what I'm talking about! There's a good chance players won't pick up on this stuff at all and it's all just me.